Popular schools are being forced to pull teachers out of lessons and hire
specialist lawyers to help combat a rising tide of “groundless” admissions
appeals from disgruntled parents, it emerged today.

Head teachers are facing mounting paperwork following a flood of official complaints from families who failed to get their children into their favoured school.

Figures show that 83,000 appeals against admissions ruling were submitted to schools last year but almost three-quarters of claims were rejected.

It was the highest rejection rate for five years and prompted fresh concerns that parents were inundating schools with spurious appeals.

Today, the Association of School and College Leaders called for fresh curbs to be placed on the appeals system, requiring parents to demonstrate they have proper grounds for a complaint before making an application.

Parents should be required to show that a school wilfully ignored its own admissions rules or cheated the system, it was claimed, not simply because they were unhappy with the outcome.

Mike Griffiths, ASCL president and head of Northampton School for Boys, said he received around 100 appeals from parents of 11-year-olds and another 30 on behalf of prospective sixth-formers each year.

He told the Times Educational Supplement that the number of appeals was so high that he was forced to send teachers to represent the school at official hearings.

“They take place during the school day, so my best chemistry teacher misses six or seven days of teaching a year in the last three weeks before the A-level group goes on study leave,” he said.

“It’s a big waste of time, energy and money.”

St Marylebone School in London takes 150 new pupils each year and typically deals with 100 appeals from parents, it emerged.

Elizabeth Phillips, the head, told the TES that the school had been forced to hire a full-time admissions officer and consult a firm of education lawyers to fight appeals.

“Parents want their child to go to a good school, not any school,” she said. “Why should oversubscribed schools have to spend so much time and money on admissions and appeals? They are being penalised for being in great demand. It’s a cost to schools at a time when budgets are going down.”

Currently, schools are required to publish a formal admissions number and cannot routinely take extra pupils.

Parents are usually only able to successfully appeal if the inconvenience to a pupil of being rejected outweighs the problems faced by a school of creating an additional place. They can also win an admissions battle if it is proved that the school failed to follow its own admissions rules.

But it is feared that many families are being encouraged to appeal even when admissions rules have been followed on the “off chance” that they may win.

Margaret Tulloch, secretary of Comprehensive Future, a campaign group fighting for a fair admissions system, said: “We have had years and years of parents being told they have a choice. It’s not surprising there are more parents appealing. For lawyers, it’s become a real growth area.”